Hanging mechanisms and support hooks have been utilized in conjunction with containers and dispensers in various ways in the industry. U.S. Pat. No. 2,760,687, for example, which issued to I. W. Spier et al. on Aug. 28, 1956, discloses a squeeze container including a detachable spout member having a "goose neck" configuration. The shape of the spout is designed to direct the contained liquid downwardly during dispensing operations and to provide hook means for suspending the device for storage. The Spier et al. spout further includes a reservoir located at the end of the downwardly curved portion which is designed to contain a predetermined amount of liquid product to provide a dosed application of such liquid separate from the remainder of the product within the body of the container. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,495,797, which issued to D. M. Ganz on Feb. 17, 1970, describes a holder for a collapsible tube container, such holder comprising a hook member by which the container may be suspended from a suitable support. The Ganz holder includes a frusto-conical body having a depending sidewall designed to fit over a conventional closure cap and to engage therewith. After the holder is fit over the closure cap, the holder/closure cap combination can be removed from the collapsible tube for dispensing and replaced for storage after a dispensing operation.
A dispensing container having a washer-shaped hanger member designed to be coupled to a track for mounting on a bathroom wall is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,085,867, which issued to P. Heller on Apr. 25, 1978. The Heller dispenser includes a main product chamber, an integrally formed pump chamber located beneath the main chamber, and a pair of check valves arranged above and below such pump chamber to provide a pump-type dispenser which can be manually squeezed to dispense liquid. On its upper end, the Heller dispenser includes threaded neck portion whereon a cap closure is placed. The cap closure is designed to hold in place the washer-shaped hanger member which includes an upturned bead portion designed to interact with a horizontal hanging track to suspend the dispenser along a vertical surface.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,304,547 and 2,362,523, which issued to F. A. Cutter on Dec. 8, 1942 and E. M. Armstrong, Jr. et al. on Nov. 14, 1944, respectively; disclose suspension members for containers, with such suspension members having peripheral channel elements which attach over beads formed along the bottom edge of the containers. Both of these references also contemplate hook means which can be placed in either an extended hanging position or a relatively non-obstructing storage position relative to the bottom surface of the container.
A liquid dispensing bottle hanger is also disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,945,060, which issued to F. Gargione on Mar. 23, 1976. The Gargione bottle has a large circular boss formed on its bottom wall onto which a hanger clip is to be mounted. The hanger clip has a pair of arcuate fingers which circumferentially and slidably engage the circular boss. The Gargione clip is rotatable 90.degree. about the circular boss between stored and hanging positions. When in the stored position, the downwardly extending portion of the clip coincides in face-to-face relationship with a protuberance formed in the lower portions of the dispensing bottle.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,484,013, which issued to W. L. Speicher on Dec. 16, 1969, shows a container having a retractable suspension hook attached to its bottom surfaces. The Speicher container is formed with a concave recess in its bottom wherein a lug is formed. The lug has a central aperture which receives one end of an elongated suspension hook which can be rotated from a stored position within the concave recess of the container bottom to an extended position. A lip is formed on the lug to serve as a retainer for the elongated hook device to retain the hook in its retracted position when desired.
Despite all the prior work done in this area, there remain problems in providing a hanger system which does not interfere with standard manufacturing, shipping and handling procedures associated with the container while allowing convenient suspension of such container in inverted condition from a variety of support structures. With prior art hangers, rotatable adjustability of the hanger member was often limited between stored or hanging positions, thereby limiting the adaptability of the hanger system to various environments. Prior hangers also lacked the ability to easily adjust to various bottle shapes and bottle hanging characteristics.